CHAOS!

Dec 072007

On Tuesday, it was just me and Ian at the design meeting. We played a several iterations of my new Space Port game. We took it from a bunch of clunky mechanics and turned it into something that was interesting and playable. It still has a lot of work to go, though. Besides that, we also experimented with some new rules for Monkey Lab intended to reduce the chaos in the game. That led us into a discussion about what chaos is, why it exists, and why some games have it and others don’t.We defined chaos as the feeling a player has when he has little to no control over significant changes in the game. This can come into play when your opponents mess with neutral playing pieces, as in Wiz-War, or your playing pieces, as in Wiz-War. In Fluxx this occurs a lot, and you might as well not even pay attention when it isn’t your turn because the game will have changed dramatically by the time yours starts again. Consider yourself lucky in either of these games if your plans haven’t been entirely disintegrated after one round.

Chaos is something that can be amplified when the number of players increase. In a two player game, you have one guy who is always doing his best to slow you down. In a six player game, you have five guys that can all potentially choose to work against you. Even when there are not direct attacks possible in the game, multiple players simply means that the percentage of choices you make in the game is smaller.

Werewolf is the perfect example of demonstrating the chaos/player relationship. In a hundred-player game of Werewolf, the results are very chaotic. Your vote to kill a villager is almost insignificant. The odds that you get what you want are very small. Once the game gets down to a small handful of people, you feel much more in control because there are less people to convince and less opposing arguments to overcome.

RoboRally is another game of chaos. The chaos exhibited here is in the form of unexpected and uncontrollable outcomes. As a player, you do have a lot of control over where you want your robot to end up on the board. However, one unplanned bump from another robot will make the rest of your moves nearly random. Planning for this, players can choose to “take the long way” to the goal and avoid interactions with other players thereby reducing the amount of chaos. So, with RoboRally, players can control the amount of chaos they want to encounter. They are effectively “in control” with their risk management plans.

My game Monkey Lab has a similar problem, except it does not have a strong “risk management” solution to the chaos. Your plans can be messes up no matter what you do. The solutions we came up with allows for players to take actions such that they can avoid chaos in the short term. Chaos will still exist, but players should feel more in control of whether or not they want to subject themselves to it.

Chaos is something I never really though about until now, and I plan on being more aware of it. Chaos can exist, but the key is all about keeping your game under tolerable levels of it.

Downdraft Skiing

Nov 302007

At this week’s meeting, I mentioned this dexterity game that I made for a BGDF designer challenge about two years ago, and I thought I repost it. I don’t remember why I brought it up, but it did come in second place and I think it’s pretty good. It’s really easy to make (household stuff), but be warned you will get light headed with all of the blowing you’ll be doing!

Downdraft Skiing
By Dan Manfredini

For any number of two player teams

Components

• 1 Cotton Ball
• 1 Ping Pong Ball
• 1 Crumpled Paper Ball
• 5 (or more) Unopened Cans (Soda, Beer, Soup, etc.)
• 1 Stop Watch
• 1 Sheet of Paper w/ Pencil
• 1 Long Table

The Object of the Game

Downdraft Mountain is notorious for its strong winds and deadly cliffs, but that doesn’t stop skiers from attempting to slalom down it. The object of the game is for you and your teammate to blow your skier (ball) in and out of the flags (cans) to the end of the course.

Setting up the Game

• Clear off a long table and remove all of the chairs around it.
• Place 5 cans down the length of the center of the table. You may use more cans depending on the length of your table. Player may agree to stagger them off of the center to increase difficulty.
• Designate a “start” end and a “finish” end to the table.
• Assign teams of two players.

Playing the Game

The game will consist of three rounds. The type of skier will vary each round:

Round 1 – Cotton Ball (Stops reasonably)
Round 2 – Ping Pong Ball (Does not stop)
Round 3 – Crumpled Paper Ball (Stops too early)

On Your Run

Each team will get one chance during each round to run through the course.

On your team’s run, both players go to the “start” end of the table. One player stands on the one side of the table and the other player stands on the opposite side. One player will place the ball on the table in front of him.

Designate a player on another team to be the referee. That person will give a countdown, tell the players to start, and then start the timer. The player will then blow his ball through the first gate (between the edge of the table and the first can). The teammate will then blow the ball back around the next can. This will continue until the ball goes through the last gate (between the edge of the table and the last can). When the ball passes through the last gate, the moment it leaves the table is when the timer should be stopped. The referee then records the time for that run.

Special Rules

• While the ball is on the table, it may not be touched, except the replace a fallen ball.
• If the ball falls off the table, put it back on at the edge where it fell off.
• A player cannot leave his or her side of the table.

Scoring

At the end of each run, that team is penalized one point (+1) each time the ball falls off the table, one point (+1) each time a teammate touches the ball illegally, and two points (+2) each time a player leaves his or her side of the table.
At the end of each round, the team with the best time marks off two points (-2).
At the end of the game, the team with the least points is the winner.

Drey's take on BGG.con

Nov 202007

This is cross-posted from my blog:

I was in Dallas this past Thursday through Sunday for BoardGameGeek.con, a fantastic board gaming convention. It was a smaller, more laid back type of con than your GenCon or ComicCon, with perhaps only 700 attendees.

I cajoled Cory into going at the very last minute, so he, Nukes, Majcher and I headed up there Thursday morning. The con was at the Westin near the airport. The only thing nearby was a Denny’s and a Shell station. That Denny’s must make bank as it was the only source of reasonably priced “food” within several miles, as we found out.

The con itself was spread out between a large ballroom, a smaller ballroom and an overflow room. Plus there was a foyer area and a games library. The games library was this heavenly wonderland where you could find every game you had ever heard of, no matter how rare or out of print. Games that would cost you $300 on eBay could be checked out and played, even taken up to your room overnight. That right there should tell you about the top shelf quality of people at this convention.

I got to see Mischa again! Mischa is a gaming dynamo. I came down one morning, at what I thought was an early time (maybe 7:30 or 8AM) to find Mischa embroiled in a game of Galaxy Trucker. He had gamed through the night with no signs of stopping. Later that afternoon, I began to suspect the use of illegal stimulants, or, at the very least, a clone. How could someone do this? The secret to his staying power was revealed a few days later, but I shall take it to my grave.

I had the most fun playing obscure games, out of print games or games designed by my friends. Kapitan Wackelpudding left a deep impression. Shipping a stack of coffins and video games to Dracula land is no easy task. Tales of the Arabian Nights stole my heart. It is a game I should have been playing during my childhood at the same time as Talisman or Cosmic Encounter. It is essentially a Choose Your Own Adventure board game with role-playing elements. Thankfully, Z-Man is coming out with a new version next June. I learned the ferocity of soccer moms vying for the best looking garden in Garden Competition.

I played Dan’s Monkey Lab again, outwitting my opponents. I also had a chance to play Majcher’s Honeypot, which is a brilliant abstract strategy game. I was also delighted by his prototype of Fluffy Bunny Tea Party. It involves bunnies sitting around eating cakes, drinking tea and being horrifically polite to each other. Dan sold out of Chains of Fenrir, Majcher sold out of Honeypot and Ian sold out of Taktika. We were all really happy for Ian. He walked around in this kind of daze, unprepared for how well his game would be received.

I brought 12 units of House of Whack and managed to sell 6 of them! At first I was really overwhelmed. I felt kind of stunned by what it was I was trying to do and a deep terror grabbed hold of me. I didn’t think anyone was going to like my game. I wanted to give up and run far away. But on the morning of the flea market, I went down to the show room, claimed half a table, and set up a display for House of Whack. When the browsers flooded in like a Zerg rush, I kept my head and hyped the game to everyone who came by. My very first sale was to Aldie, one of the guys in charge of the convention. That was cool.

Friedemann Friese, a famous game designer was there as the guest of honor. He hung out and played games with everyone like a regular guy. You could always spot him in the room due to his shock of bright green hair. He always looked like he was searching for something, entering a room, head craning about, trying to spot something just out of view. I talked with him about what it was like when he had finished his first game and he said that he felt like he had no idea what he was doing, but, after the first game, nothing else quite gives you the same feeling. I get that.

Sunday morning found us packing up our massive hauls of treasure gleaned from the math trade and the flea market. If I had an extra $100 (and more trunk space), I would have matched Jake and Jen’s impressive finds. I think they got Arkham Horror and Descent for $40 total. Nice.

And then we came back to Austin.

The End.

A Nice Little Meeting

Nov 142007

Last night Ian and Marc showed up at my place, and we did a bit of playing and a lot of design talking. Here are some of the highlights:

Lab Work 

I asked if we could try out Monkey Lab with some suggested rules. There were some clever plays, and a few evil ones.  In the end, I beat Marc by one point. Ian was spinning his wheels working on one cage the whole game, and wound up with only mooched points.

We discussed the merits of the rules changes. The first rule change (a monkey can’t open a cage in a room with the guard in it) didn’t come into play. The second rule change (the guard moves two spaces toward a cage being opened) worked alright. It was noted that the guard usually ended up in a room that was already tapped out of points. I think we were all ambivalent with the moving rule because there were good reasons for having it and good reasons for leaving it out.

Hell and Back 

We also tried out a game Ian and I made a few weeks back about escaping from hell. The game is a kind of set collecting game where you are trying to endure tortures without losing your will to escape. The sets being collected are actually runs of numbers, so collecting a “4-5-6″ would be a valid run that you could cash in to move one step closer to escaping from hell.

In our first version we used a d8 and some stones as a way to track our stats. In order to clean it up, the second version used a personal board for each player with some sliding counters to represent the stats. The funny thing was that the cleaner version was harder to use. It is much easier to glance at your opponent and see he has a pile of stones than it is to look at his board and see where his counters are at long their path.

Ian proposed that the cards utilize color in some way. I was against is because I think there is something novel in games that don’t use a suit. Games like No Thanks! and Category 5 just have that uniqueness about them that separates them from games with color and suit like Lost Cities. I eventually conceded to the “color matters” design, but I pushed that there only be two colors, red and black. The colors will be used as a way of progressing yourself out of hell a bit faster using a Candyland-like mechanic. Both Ian and I are going to try our hands at making a hellscape board that makes use of this mechanic and gives the player incentives to make progress rather than hoarding cards.

 Sci-Fi Party Game

As we were discussing game designs, Marc said that we needed to make a party game. I told him that I had an idea for a social game that is based on the game Zobmondo. Where Zobmondo likes to focus on sick dilemmas like “Would you rather eat a jar of spoiled year-old mayo, or drink out of a spittoon?”, the idea I had would focus on science fiction quandaries. For example, “Should it be legal to marry an intelligent being of another species?”, “Now that we’ve colonized and found oil on Mars, which country has rights to it?”, “If your brain is surgically transferred into your clone, is the clone you for legal purposes such as taxes, debt, and property?” We also discussed putting the game into a format where players would be debating these issues as futuristic presidential candidates. Marc jumped right on this one and is planning on working on it.

Meeting Preview

Nov 062007

Tuesday night is here again.  Here are some things we may see at our meeting:

Ian has a new game out called Taktika. It is a disc flicking war game that is a lot of fun. The last I heard, he was polishing up the last bit of box art and rules wordings. The game is currently available to be purchased here or at BGG.CON where he will be demoing it. Hopefully tonight we will be seeing the final version.

Drey has just gotten some copies of his game House of Whack in from the printers. This is a twisted house exploring game where anything can happen. He was only able to get a handful early so he would be able to show them off and sell some at BGG.CON. There’s nothing better than unwrapping a fresh new game. Ahhhh!

I’ve got some Monkey Lab testing to do with some new rules. Maybe we can try them out.

Random Design Thought:

In Blue Moon City, if you had to use your starting hand for the entire game, I wonder if the game would eventually come to an end. This is assuming you redraw your discarded cards at the end of your turn instead of drawing new ones. I’m sure it could be done for most hands, but what about for each possible hand of 8 cards? Just something to think about.

Game Rejection

Oct 302007

I found out yesterday that Travelogue has failed to move forward in the Lucca Best Unpublished Game contest. It stalled out in the top 10. It is my understanding, though, that it will be available for all to play at the Lucca Comics & Games convention. That is assuming they translated my rules into Italian or someone is willing to teach it. In any case, I look forward to reading any feedback I receive about the game from the contest judges. I’ll have to make a nice copy again for my own collection, but I think I’m going to wait until I get the official “death certificate” email from them.

You have to have a thick skin to take the rejection you get as a fledgling game designer. Once you make it past phase 1 (idea, design, playtest, development), you’ve got something that people tell you is a good game. Rest assured, they told you it sucked at some point along the way, but since then you’ve made your game into something they really like now. You’ve got the prototype and the rules as polished as you can. You’re happy with it, and you’re ready to push it out into the real world. Yay!

You then move on to phase 2, where you send it out to a contest or a publisher. Get ready, get set, wait! It is best to just forget about your game for this period because there is little you can do to move the process forward (besides nagging to the publisher). As the months progress, you may wonder about what kind of adventures your game is encountering, and if it is making friends. The big day will come when you’ll find out that your game doesn’t suit their needs. It is very anti-climactic. It just ends after all that wait. Your little game went out into the big world, only to be squashed like roadkill. Sometimes they’ll send it back in a box, most of the time they won’t. Maybe the game deserved it. Maybe it didn’t. Poor game.

On the bright side, a game is only an idea. You can make another copy! You can send it out again, but this time better prepared. Hopefully someday it will make it to the published world, where you can move on to phase 3, where you can feel a new type of rejection: apathy or even disdain from the gaming public. Every game has its lovers and its haters. Some games even fade into the background after its initial hype. It is to be expected.

Anyways, I don’t want this to be a depressing post because I’m feeling fine. It’s a repetitive process, and, if anything, I’m feeling a bit exhausted. Its a lot of work for little feedback. I’ve got all the time in the world to continue this process, and I intend to do so. So it looks like back to the drawing board.

Submitted for your Approval

Oct 092007

Good news everyone!

You may remember that I entered my prototype card game Travelogue into the Lucca Games competition. Well, I just found out that my game is one of the finalists. It is in the top ten, which turns out to be the top 25% because there were around 40 entries. The top three will be announced on November 1st along with the first place winner. The winner will be published and will receive free copies of his game. I am very excited about this! To me, what this means is that my game rules were read, understood, and taught to Italians. AND it was good enough to make it to the finals. It is really cool to have my game being played in another country by people I don’t even know.

In other game contest news, I plan on entering Hippodice this year again. I skipped out on it last year because I wasn’t fully prepared, but that won’t stop me this year!  I think I will enter my new war game. I haven’t written the rules down yet, or refined most of the cards, but I want to put something into the contest just so I don’t miss the opportunity this year. There’s nothing better than having a deadline to motivate you!

On Friday night I was able to play a six player game of Salvage. Now, originally, the game was only from two to four players (mostly due to the components I had on hand). Well, after reading the rules to the game, a publisher said he would only look at it if it handled up to six players since that it more marketable. I complied and made more cards, tokens, and card racks. The test went pretty well, and nothing totally fell apart. So with that, I’ll be sending out Salvage next month.

Speaking of sending out prototypes, Monkey Lab is currently en route to England where it will be played and hopefully considered for publication.  Go, Monkey Lab, Go!

One more thing, the Chains of Fenrir rules have finally been posted on boardgamegeek.com. Also, it is now available to purchase here.

Tonight is Design Night

Oct 022007

Every Tuesday we have design night at my place and I usually shoot out an email with some agenda details and a call for who is coming. From now on, I figured I’d post this here on the blog instead so everyone can see what we’ve been up to.

One of the things I’d like to discuss this week is the ad we’re placing on The Dice Tower podcast. We’ve all pitched in and written little blurbs for our games, and hopefully we will attract some interest. In addition to that, Marc has updated the gizmet site with pages for our new games. Exciting times! Speaking of Marc, I saw that he had a playtest of his prototype Rocket Yard on Friday night with some rules tweaks, and I’d like to hear how that went. Hopefully Ian will bring his latest version of his prototype for Galaxy in Flames, a real time space combat card game, and maybe he’ll update us about the production of his game, Taktitka. I’ve got my genericly titled game “War Game” ready again to playtest with some hybrid ideas from the first and second versions. I’m not sure what is on the docket for Drey, Mark, or our newest attendee.

On another subject, I guess I forgot to update my story on my last post about the game I’m publishing. Well, first let me say the game is called Chains of Fenrir (formerly called the bead game). Secondly, to wrap up my story on the bag cinch: it worked out just fine since the stones I bought were too big to fall out if closed properly. That was actually the easy problem to fix. The bigger issue came when my stones arrived in the mail. It turned out that the purple stones and the orange stones were near identical on the table and could only be distinguished if held up to a light. I compare it to how a glass of grape soda and cola are hard to tell apart unless they’re backlit. My solution to this problem was to shop locally for some white stones as a replacement. Unfortunately, it was very difficult to find plain white stones. As luck would have it, one of my friends recently bought a ton of stones, and he happened to have a surplus of white stones. He let me have them, and I have enough for a little over a dozen games. I’ll eventually have to buy more, but at least I have some to start off with. If you’d like to check out the game, the rules should be posted on BoardGameGeek shortly. I’ve got some pics of the components up there too. If you’d like to buy the game, we’ve got it all set up for you to do that here.

Bags under my Eyes

Sep 122007

On Monday, I got a package in the mail with an important component to my game: the bag. Each game will come with a nice soft brown leather bag (actually, I’m not really sure of the material) with a cool authentic texture. They look much better in person than they do in the picture on the seller’s website. I’ll post a picture of it when I get the other components. Everything about them seemed great, except…

Cinching the bag closed still left enough of an opening that contents could fall out! If there’s one thing you want your bag to do, it’s hold things inside securely. My first solution was to tie the drawstrings once, like I did for my prototype’s bag. Unfortunately, the drawstring on the bag was made of a thin silky material and would not stay tied. To be honest, I didn’t think this would be a problem. I am going to wait until I get the other components to check if they will actually fall out. If they still do, I have a solution where I’d replace the drawstrings with a more tie-able material. String is cheap, and I’d rather take the time to replace it than have players lose their components each time they put their game on the shelf.

Now we wait for the other components…

Piecing it Together

Sep 052007

I have decided to publish a game myself. After a couple years of going through the regular channels of submitting games to companies and getting nowhere, I felt that I wanted to change it up a bit. My goal for this project is firstly to get a game out there, and see how the general gaming public reacts to it. My second goal is to learn the process, the costs, and all the other things that publishers handle with as little risk as possible. Finally, and least of all, I’d like to make a small profit to turn around and pour into my next project. The game I am going to produce is small enough that I should be achieve all of these goals.

My first step in the process was to create a nice spreadsheet analyzing the costs. I used google docs for this because it has a handy feature to share file with other users, which is great when I want feedback on something that I’m constantly changing. After making the bare bones spreadsheet, I went shopping on the net for my components. To offset the fact that this is a home brew game, I wanted my components to be more interesting than the off-the-shelf variety. Another consideration I had was that I wanted the pieces to be color-blind friendly. I used this site to convert the images of the components to show me how well they could be distinguished from one another. Hopefully the real components will be similar to the color pictures on the web. I do believe that I found the best pieces for the price, and I am excited to see how they all look when brought together.

I have ordered the components and should be receiving them in a week or so. Until then, we wait.

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